if i could trade mistakes for sheeps (count me away before you sleep)
by dreams of a moonchild
Summary: she laughs, half delirious with unfounded hope and desperation ripe on her tongue, and thinks of stitches unravelling off a burial shroud. – story of evil/fallen angel; very much incest lenrin, a brief touch of lenku and the-cause-of-all-this-mess kairin


**Rated T bc** **INCEST** **, written in capital letter and underlined for good measures.**

 **Summary** : She laughs, half delirious with unfounded hope and desperation ripe on her tongue, and thinks of stitches unravelling off a burial shroud. – story of evil/fallen angel; very much incest lenrin, a brief touch of lenku and the-cause-of-all-this-mess kairin

 **Author's note:** Regret Message's official English name is _Fallen Angel_. Like a fourteen-year-old's first fanfic's cliché-riddled title. Let that sink in.

This is what happens when you throw Greek myths and SoE into the mix. AND THERE ARE SO MANY MYTHS TO CHOOSE, SO MANY, TOO MANY. THIS IS A MESS SAVE ME.

If you find the Hamilton reference, props to you =)))

Intentionally or not, **please do not plagiarize** me. Again. And no, replacing words with synonyms while keeping my original sentence structure is _still_ plagiarism.

 **Disclaimer: Title's from Panic! At The Disco's** ** _Trade Mistakes._** **The last quote comes from Euripides'** ** _Heracles_** **. I don't own anything.**

 **i.**

Once upon a time, there is a princess of a kingdom prosperous. Instead of nursery rhythm and everything nice, defiance and entitlement take roots, leaving behind naïveté gone wrong. In her veins courses Greek tragedies bled golden. Fire unholy and suffocating of a city burning and flesh incinerated to ash haunt her dreams, her wake. She grows up never looking back, grows to close her mouth around pomegranate seeds and lick the juice clean.

The girl – barely out of her bloomer, so _young_ still – leaves behind constellations traced on blue veins and stardust in her whisper, and chaste kisses and soft caresses and glass bottles and promises knotted into her soul, _anything, anything you wish for._

(Rilliane forgets the silhouette cut out from sunset and eternity on the lines of her palm, but the promises stay.)

 **ii.**

On her fifteen birthday, she manages to escape from the castle.

It is amidst the chaos that is the preparation for the ball held in her name that she sneaks away and runs straight to freedom. In the end, Allen finds her. And the rest, they say, is history.

 **iii.**

She watches, of course. She watches him until the very end, until loud crimson blossoms on the ground, liquid and festering. It is brutal, and fast, and quick, and

so much red.

She watches and hates herself for every second passing. Words die on the tip of her tongue, the language nonexistent of a country on fire, of memories spun into tales. Hysterical laughter bubbles up her throat, leaving a bitter after taste. Her throat is parched, thirsting for ichor. _O divine Gods of ancient time, here is a token of my reverence_ , Rilliane smiles and smiles until the stretches make her face aches, half-sobs a hymn so familiar already. _Here is an offering of appeasement, innocent and of untainted blood._ Names roll off easily, names she knows by heart, names she fears, names powerful and names reeks of death. Iphigenia, Idamante, Polyxena. _Here is my tribute – my sacrifice: the closest to my heart, the dearest of my soul. Let his body consecrate the ground. Let his death christen this new land, and know that his blood will stain._

 **iv.**

It is her fifteen birthday again, and Allen finds her at a port, watching sunset painting the horizon a nebula. His footsteps alert her, a deliberate move on his part.

This, too, is a trick her mind plays: A memory half-remembered, rich and regret-flavored. The conversation, the dreamscapes: a desperate illusion.

"Sunset is just brilliant, isn't it?" she repeats. "It's so bright, but the sun is so… lonely. Just like me."

"I love sunsets, Your Highness," replies Allen demurely. Rilliane does not look at him – cannot bear to look at him.

There is a story, she thinks. Of a mortal falling in love with the sun. It doesn't end well, with wax wings dripping on her face a divine warning, _he's flown too close to the sun_ and seawater filling her nostrils her throat her lungs. Of course it doesn't end well.

Don't love me too much, she thinks.

 **v.**

They all fall in love with _her_. Her own betrothed does, for one. The green haired girl whose face Rilliane does not know. Anxiety and insecurity conjure up her profile. Sometimes she is a temptress, a siren, eyes seductive and upper lip bowstring-curved. More often than not, this girl is a nymph, pure-souled and pearlescent skin, smiles that showcase her dimples and voice the sweetest anyone's ever heard. She is, perhaps, the waves of ocean, honeyed and effervescent, sea foam green whorls glitter under silvery moonlight, a faceless, nameless daughter of Poseidon.

It is not until she heard the name from Allen, of all people that there is a name to put to this person, this being that torments her. Rilliane does not miss the happy glint in his eyes at the mere mention of this name, and betrayal grows tenfold, cold and unforgiving.

Michaela, she files the name away.

 **vi.**

It is her fifteenth birthday, for the umpteenth time. Rilliane has seen this particular sunset too many times to count.

Allen is here, though.

"What would you do for me?"

"Anything," he answers easily, without pausing to think. It comes to him like breathing. A younger version of her would be pleased, surely. This her just frowns.

"Even dying for me?"

"Yes," full of conviction and none of hesitation.

She turns. He smiles the same smile she knows too well (the same one that haunts her), and wine-red blood spurts out from the cut on his neck, soaking her skin.

 **vii.**

Sometimes, when he doesn't notice, Rilliane observes him. Allen Avadonia is a simple person, simple enough that looking at him is like staring at a glass panel: transparent and open for all to see. She can pinpoints exactly what makes up his past, his personality: His cynicism, of course. His loyalty, for another; and above all, his subservience. He is _familiar_ , the way a reflection is, the way a childhood dream is: vaguely, without connection or benefit to yourself, but dear nonetheless.

But there are times when his eyes glint too brightly. Times when sunlight fills up his eye sockets, pouring out from his nose like blood; when he is too close to her, burning up like molten wax, and his smile is that of a babe, innocuous and wide, rosy-cheeked and alabaster-skinned. He is reckless in something resembles devotion: larger than life with an essence she can't put a name to but knows implicitly.

 **ix.**

Someone once compares sunsets to slit wrists, Rilliane idly muses, twirling a strand of gold spun hair. While the metaphor is grotesque, there is a grain of truth in these words: both a suicide, one of nature and one of human.

Allen will be here soon.

 **x.**

This is not the story: A servant becomes a brother becomes a ghost whose very face she knows better than her own.

This is still not the story: A sacrifice is made to calm the anger of vengeful masses who want nothing more than to spill blood.

( _Rilliane kills him._ )

 **xi.**

(He is frail and young, a blot of marigold in a sea of fire and Rilliane stands right there, frozen to the spot. Her limbs are heavy, like they are lead. Her bones ache, ancient fear frosty on her skin.

Allen – Alexiel – looks at her, rotten and decaying, and his lips curl into a slight smile so soft she can cry. _Blame me_ , she says silently and hopes he can hear. _Tell me I'm terrible, because I am. Anything–_

He shakes his head, the indistinguishable glint in his eyes bright and light-year far.)

(The mass screams for his blood, for retribution and he smiles.)

 **xii.**

Sometimes Rilliane dreams, memories tangible and lovely. She wakes up with tears streaming down her face and regret in her heart.

Sometimes she sees him dead and thinks numbly, _this is a nightmare_ only to wakes up and realizes that he really is, that her hands are red and steeped with his blood.

Sometimes she doesn't want to wake up.

 **xiii.**

The night is stifling, and Allen kneels at her side. Kisses her bare fingertips. Says _I am yours always yours I am at your disposal for you I would do anything-_

She stands, barefooted and fleeting. There is nothing beautiful about her now, not her red-rimmed eyes, nor the dried tears on her cheeks, and she is ashamed about her own little outburst. Nothing about this situation is becoming of a queen.

He still looks at her, the luminescent light in his eyes brighter than shooting stars, and she thinks she can almost put a name to it.

 **xiv.**

Rilliane is sixteen, and the sunset she is looking at is no different to the one on her fifteenth birthday.

(There is a story, long before Lucifenia is even founded. A boy falls in love with the sun and it burns him whole.

She thinks she can see his face, blond hair and perpetual smirk and glass bottles and promises blooming on his lips like flowers, _anything, anything you wish for_.

She thinks him a liar, her Icarus.)

Wind caresses her skin, stroking her lips, and she tells it he tastes like salvation. The only time she has a real wish, the only time she wants it to come true, and he is not here to make it. There is supposed to be some sorts of irony in that.

Smoke fills her ribcages where a heartbeat should be. Her bones are empty, permanently longing for something impossible. She can stick her fingers in her eye sockets and rip her eyes out, and put it on a plate. She can tear herself limb from limb, until Rilliane Lucifen d'Autriche is nothing more than bones and ribcages and yearning, and beg until stardust fills her hollow soul, echoing a hopeless wish spoken thousands years ago. _Come back. Even as a shadow. Even as a dream._

Rilliane laughs, half delirious with unfounded hope and desperation ripe on her tongue, and thinks of stitches unravelling off a burial shroud.


End file.
